


oh, Selfish Man

by helo572



Series: Tumblr Prompts [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Missions Gone Wrong, Mutual Pining, New Overwatch, Pining, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Rescue Missions, Tumblr Prompt, but winston is the boss idk it's an interesting element, i need to explore it more, jack is like, sort of, working with overwatch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 23:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11656782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helo572/pseuds/helo572
Summary: A plan to infiltrate a base of rogue Omnic scientists goes wrong, leaving Angela and her team stranded with the rogue bots and their creators.





	oh, Selfish Man

**Author's Note:**

> [imagine dragons - rise up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7oOHT-1yxM) &  
> [owl city - waving through a window (from dear even hansen)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MArrPEwW1gI)
> 
>  
> 
> this was a prompt fill from [this ask meme](http://talizorahs.tumblr.com/post/161952211674/writing-prompts). the lovely [toki](https://tokicheon.tumblr.com/) prompted me number 43: squeeze my hand if you can hear me
> 
> this kinda got outta hand. but i enjoyed it, that's the main thing. i hope you enjoy as well! seems my knack for hurt/comfort and angst hasn't left yet woops

“ _Brrrzt_ .” The comm crackles and all three of their cleanup team start in surprise. Winston had ordered radio silence until Alpha had infiltrated the rogue processing centre deep in the Russian hinterlands. “We’re - we’re…. _brrrrzt_ …”

 

“Alpha? Do you read?” Seventy-Six is crisp and clean, but dread sets in over Genji. This wasn’t expected to be an easy mission for the infiltration team. Complications were expected, but not so early in the plan.

 

“Heavy fire. Need - _brrrrzt_ …. Evac-”

 

The terrorists weren’t meant to be well-armed, just smart. That is why the one-and-only Jesse McCree had been leading the charge into the chilled plant, rumored to be holed up with prototype Eradicators. Not fully working ones, just prototypes, incapable of firefight.

 

Perhaps not. Rumors were often wrong. Seventy-Six’s forehead lines deepen as he scowls at his comm like it’s offended him, then scuffs his cheek with his gloved thumb.

 

“Get a move on, Beta,” he growls, rifle upended over their makeshift cover in the snow. It’s fucking freezing, but they barrel over the hill and towards the distant echoes of gunfire.

 

Genji’s sword arm is itching for a fight, elected for recon and cleanup today much to his dismay, but it meant Lena got to sit at McCree’s right hand and slip into her old slipstream groove. Seventy-Six is antsy, too, and Lúcio had been oddly quiet during their brief stakeout.

 

“Get me some eyes down there, Beta. What’s going on? What happened?” Winston sounds urgent, his words hot in their ears, even tucked away safely back at Gibraltar.

 

“Your intel was wrong,” Seventy-Six answers, cut and dry, despite the high-speed charge he leads through the snow towards their doomed Alpha team. He sounds - angry, almost. “Eradicators are up full force.”

 

Now, dismay: “Alpha…?”

 

“On our way to them.” A beat, then Seventy-Six adds more softly, “It’s not an easy job, Winston.” It’s the sort of tone he used to reserve for wounded soldiers and funeral eulogies; the sort of tone he used on Genji once.

 

Winston doesn’t like it, either. “I didn’t ask for your counsel. Alpha are my responsibility, I’ll deal with them. You do your job, get them out.”

 

“Hey, guys,” Lúcio interjects, more a whimper than a bang, “we’re approaching. We got this, big guy.” Then, a glance at Seventy-Six, “Sir.”

 

Sure enough, over the oppressive haze of the snow, a building rises up out of the white, and the sound of gunfire suddenly reaches Genji’s eardrums full force. So does the renewed hiss of the comm in their ears.

 

“Jack?” Genji’s heart stops with his feet as they enter the outskirts compound: Angela.

 

Seventy-Six has a hand to his visor, peering through the snow at the concrete highrise of the facility. Looking for entry points, as calm as a soldier. He’s lucky the visor hides his eyes. “Ziegler? We’re here, what’s your status? Where’s McCree?”

 

“Jack…. I….” She breathes harshly, setting Genji’s heart on edge. “They got out. I think. Escaped the ambush… Those eradicators never were fast.”

 

There’s still gunfire piercing through the snow, but Genji can’t hear it through the comm on Angela’s end.

 

“The scientists?”

 

“Went after the Jesse and Lena.”

 

“And you? Doctor Ziegler? Are you alright?” She certainly doesn’t _sound_ alright, hence the question slips urgently from Genji’s lips at Seventy-Six’s incompetent silence as he thinks, or perhaps tries to get through the others. It’s not important.

 

“I…. I was hit. It’s not major - but -”

 

“Where are you,” demands Genji, without missing a beat.

 

“Stuck - a little. Jesse tried, but they had to leave me. Promised he’d come back…. But…. they sound occupied. I don’t know - I don’t-”

 

“I can’t raise them,” Seventy-Six adds, then spares a glance to the two of them, where Lúcio also comes up with nothing but static. At _least_ the snowfall isn’t so bad here they have a clear connection to Angela. Injured, trapped in a firefight, alone, Angela.

 

Genji’s dread settles into icicles through his heart, much colder than the wind which bites at his joints. That decides for him, and the insistent twitch of his arm for the weight of his sword, to end these men for putting Angela in harm's way.

 

“I’m going to get her.”

 

He’s halfway over the wall, enough to ignore Seventy-Six’s objections, then again over the comms. He blocks him out - literally - and tunes into Angela instead, whose breathing is laboured, harsh and fast, like she’s sweating out a bad fever.

 

“Angela? I’m coming. Jack and Lúcio - they’ll find the others. You’ll be fine, I promise.”

 

“Genji…?”

 

“Yes, I’m coming.”

 

She huffs, almost like a laugh, Genji can’t tell over the scratchy texture of the comms. “They…. should have had you. Instead of me. This wouldn’t have happened…. otherwise.”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous. The information was wrong, they were waiting for you. That’s not your fault, or McCree’s, or Lena’s.”

 

“Oh… you’re right. You’re always right. About this mission, too, working with Seventy-Six - Jack. You said to me…. about…. bad feelings.”

 

She’s rambling, trying to keep talking, so Genji speeds up. He’s over the security walls easily, then slips into the building, between the empty shipping crates which previously contained the supposedly inactive Eradicator units. Alpha was tasked to sneak in right through the front door, in with the merchandise, but didn’t count on their cargo wanting the blankets back - by the sounds of it.

 

With the units compromised, it was then planned for them to go on and take back the scientists, with the threatened life of their oppressive creations. Seventy-Six, Lúcio and Genji were to assist with this once the men were secured.

 

McCree had it planned to a T. Lena and him were happy with their gunpower, and Angela knew her way around the back of an Eradicator, and a man’s mind. She was their decommissioning _and_ bargaining chip in shutting down these terrorists before more forces could be deployed to the Russian omnics.

 

A genius. Genji’s appreciation for her skills and work ran for miles, even before he got to his deep admiration for the woman herself. She knew this, of course, and entertained him and the changed man he was. They made good company for each other, in the turmoil Overwatch was as it resurfaced out of the ashes, with some flames rekindled more than others.

 

“I’m inside, Angela. Run it down with me. Where are you?”

 

She takes a moment to answer, “... back room, two corridors down. Yes, two. Or three? I don’t - don’t remember. Genji, I don’t remember, it’s…. Three. Must be. We ran from them, as fast as we could but-” She inhales sharply, like she’s been shot, likely what she’s remembering.

 

Genji grits his teeth, darting down the main corridor, noting easily the signs of battle - scuff marks, shells, bullet holes. A used flashbang. This had been less than three minutes ago and yet, not fast enough.

 

God damn Seventy-Six. God damn Overwatch. Angela deserved better than trapped in a freezing back room, her comrades forced to leave her, Jack Morrison more concerned about their mission than his friend’s life.

 

“I hope Jesse and Lena are alright,” she breathes, as Genji stakes out the second corridor to be sure, every room and cupboard in the vicinity. “Jesse was - apologising. He does…. a lot of that now. He reminds me a lot of Reyes, you know?”

 

That makes Genji wince, so does the splotch of blood as he turns the corner into another stretch of doors. There’s bullet holes in the far wall, scorch marks, and tracks on the floor. The bots had been through here.

 

“Said he - didn’t want to leave. But I got stuck…. He was already hit, Lena was running out of charge. I…. I had to let them. Couldn’t let them get hurt.”

 

“The rest of Beta went to find them. You don’t have to worry.”

 

She seems to deflate at that, albeit shakily.

 

“Jack will take good care of them. I…. I know he will. Despite all the bad things we say about him. He.... means well, Genji.”

 

He’s _not_ having this discussion with a half-delirious, likely cold and trapped Angela. Finding her was the first predicament, _rescuing_ her from wherever she was stuck, was another story. The blood trail was leading him deeper into the maze of doors, until eventually he came to it - a door slightly ajar, he could see movement inside, and lights, too. The Caduceus, maybe? Angela must have used it on herself to treat her wound however serious it was.

 

“Angela?”

 

He reaches for the comfort of his sword over his shurikens, wanting that weight in his hand, so he can replace it with Angela’s hand as they escape this wretched place.

 

Except - it’s not that simple.

 

“Genji…”

 

She’s there, alright, trapped in a stand off with two Eradicators at the corner of the room. There’s blood soaked through her white suit, slick on one of her hands which is pressed to her side. Her other hand is curled around her gun, which waveringly points at one Eradicator. The other points its gun at her, orange eyes narrowed, but eerily completely still.

 

Waiting.

 

Genji freezes, too.

 

“It’s… okay. You can come closer. I…. figured it out.” He approaches cautiously, sword trained on the omnic which threatens her life. She’s standing, he realizes, wobbling on her own two feet despite her wound. Sweating, too, and trembling. Bleeding. Smiling at him, like she’s still the doctor and he’s a patient who needs reassuringly. “Prototypes…”

 

He stops between the two bots. The one Angela has subdued is frozen mid-fight, gun raised to reload, not to attack. The other has come to its defense. There they have stopped, and so has Angela, who this whole time, could not have moved at the risk of her own life.

 

He dreads so much it eats itself into full blown _fear_. He has to get her out of here before something happens, before whatever holds them here breaks, and a bullet lodges itself between her eyes.

 

“The reason they’re so…. dangerous. Is they are self-preserving. Won’t harm let harm come to itself, or each other. Like humans. What we always feared…. being replaced, or bettered.” She coughs out something like a laugh, her raised arm trembling visibly, finger hovering on the trigger of the tiny blaster. “Here… it is. Self-preservation, robot form. They won’t harm me…. unless I shoot the other.”

 

Now Genji understands: stuck. Injured, too. Cold, uncomfortable. And Seventy-Six too far away to contact for aid, chasing down the others, because he had run off without thinking.

 

Fear bites at him, shortening his breath. Angela smiles again, painfully.

 

“It’s… alright. Genji. I’ve had…. had time. To think. I can do it, if you take out the other.”

 

“No!” he answers immediately, stepping forward, but shying - yet the bots do not make a move, at his movement or raised voice. “No,” he says, again, insistent. “I won’t let them harm you.”

 

She huffs that strange laugh again. Genji doesn’t like it. “I…. I don’t think you have a choice.”

 

Genji grinds his jaw in frustration, looking between the two bots, and Angela, who shouldn’t have the strength to waver on her feet for as long as she has. He doesn’t have long before she collapses and the decision is made for him.

 

The sword bounces in his hand as he looks again with renewed vigor, and the shurikens itch at his wrist. He could time them together, or perhaps with a dash of his sword - either _could_ work, but that’s not good enough to bid Angela’s life on.

 

“Genji…” she implores gently, at what must have been helpless painted across the green visor. “I am…. alright. I can do this.”

 

“No,” he answers back, firmly, sparing her a single glance - seeing her fingers tremble and her knees shake can only stir so much fear into his human heart. “I always have a choice. You told me this. That is why I am here, because I had a choice. I chose Overwatch. I chose _you_. And I choose the same again, now.”

 

He readies his sword, calls upon the tethers to the spirits, opens himself to the green which pours into the room. He breathes it in like smoke, then with a cry, it happens more quickly than how he ended to Hanzo’s blade all those years ago.

 

A shout, a flash of green, orange, yellow. A scream, a tangle of limbs, a crash as mangled bots clutter to the floor. Then - nothing.

 

The dragon releases Genji, and he releases his sword. Angela is crumped on the floor unmoving, one of the ruined bots guns is smoking. Fear takes him, propels him forward to her side, where he takes her hand and her head, cradles her off that cold and awful concrete floor.

 

“Angela? Angela!” He shakes her, desperate for a response, and there it is as he wishes - the pinch of her face as she shifts minutely in his arms. “Squeeze my hand, Angela.” He needs that confirmation, solid in his metal fingers, so he can move her somewhere safe. “I need to know you can hear me.”

 

“Can…. can…. Hear you. Genji,” she murmurs back, ever so softly, that he collapses in relief against her. The faceplate comes back on command, so he can touch his forehead to hers and feel the flutter of her breath against his cheek. “Didn’t…. didn’t get me….”

 

And sure enough, it didn’t. In the wall behind where Angela’s head had been, there was a clean rifle mark. She was solid and breathing in his arms, alive and safe.

 

“You’re safe,” he breathes in return, sparing a glance to the smoking remains of the omnics, too. Self-preservation - he can’t imagine the calculating drive they hold to stay alive, or how Angela Ziegler _still_ beat them with a hole in her side.

 

Her hand is still pressed to the wound, so he covers it with his own, pressing down hard. She hisses in pain, shifting uncomfortable in his arms, while he murmurs apologies and tries to figure out the best way to get them both back to the entrance, to find Jack and the others and get out of here.

 

“S’not…. bad. Genji. M’okay.”

 

“Slurring at me isn’t a good convincer.”

 

She chuckles, eyes sliding open to find his face. She smiles again, that reassuring smile he wishes he could wipe off her face, because _she’s_ the injured one, not him. It makes a change, but not one he wishes to get used to.

 

“Got me there.”

 

He uses that pause to shift a limp arm around his neck, to get the both of them up off the ground. His other hand stays pushed firmly to her side, to keep that wound well within his reach, and to support her as Genji rises to his feet.

 

Angela hangs from his side, head drooping, then shifts so her chin lulls into the crook of his shoulder. He wishes at times like these, he were still a man, so she had the warm comfort of his skin as they make this trek back. Of course, she doesn’t seem to mind, settling there all the same, not complaining as Genji starts them at a slow pace back the way he came.

 

“Thank you,” Angela starts, as they leave the room, Genji not sparing a glance to the destroyed Eradicators behind him, “for rescuing me. And saving my life. I…. I would be surely dead without you.”

 

“I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself,” he answers equally as earnesty in return.

 

There’s that huff again, and she raises her head to spare a glance at his face. It’s there, with seemingly the last of her strength, she lifts her chin to plant a kiss on his cheek.

 

The blush warms his face, and her shy smile warms his heart, setting the gentle pace back to the front door. Seventy-Six and McCree are nowhere in sight in the cargo bay, so Genji deposits them both behind a larger crate, shielded from the wind and snow. Angela curls into his shoulder, breathing slow. He tucks his chin on top of her head, an arm around her shoulders, and his other hand still pressed to her side.

 

“Winston? Are you there?” Seventy-Six had been able to reach Gibraltar from their trek over here, the long-distance comms _should_ work for Genji from in here.

 

To his relief, there’s a breathless, immediate answer, “Reading you. We’ve had silence for the past ten minutes, _what_ is going on down there.”

 

“I have Angela - Doctor Ziegler. She’s injured, we need immediate evac. The others are still unaccounted for. It’s…. just us.”

 

The gorilla sighs deeply. “I can dispatch a shuttle from Omsk, E.T.A. about six and a half minutes. It can’t stay, not if the zone is still red with Eradicators. I need you all out of there, Genji. Safe and well, too, if possible.”

 

“I understand. You…. want me to go after the others?”

 

He sighs again. “I… no. Angela. How is she?”

 

She stirs at her name, raking in a breath to look at Genji. “Here, Winston. She’s alright, still conscious, but bleeding badly from left side. Laser wound, looks deep. Faced off with two omnics alone.”

 

“ _Alone?_ ”

 

“Complicated…. Winston,” she breathes in answer, a hint of a smirk in her voice. “Tell you once we’re all home safe.”

 

“I’ll hold you to that, Doctor.” Then, to Genji: “You can’t leave her?”

 

“I could, but the location of the other bots _and_ the others are unknown. Or she could freeze. I…. I don’t know what the best course of action is, Winston.”

 

“You…. could hook up the Staff,” Angela suggests, curling deeper into Genji’s side as she does. There’s a shiver, a certain glassiness in her eyes he doesn’t like. Of course, the Caduceus is strapped to her back, in favour of the gun in the stand off with the Eradicators. “I can wait. Will… be okay, you two. Promise.”

 

“Genji, we need the others here. The shuttle’s dispatched, looking at less than six minutes for E.T.A. You _all_ need to get out of….”

 

The rest of what he says is drowned out by shouting, gunfire, and the unmistakable sound of Jesse’s boots hard on the concrete. Genji starts at the noise, neck craning, and Angela is just as agree to see the rest of her team safe.

 

“Left! One more!” That’s Seventy-Six, out of breath, but alive.

 

There’s a hum of soothing music that settles over them both as the voices near - Lúcio boosts the group into the cargo bay, and makes Angela sigh into his side, glad for the relief. If it’s for the appearance of the others, or of Lúcio’s ambient biotic emitters, it’s unclear. Likely both.

 

Jesse grunts, fires off all six shots in his revolver, and then Lena blinks into existence beside them. As in, completely beside them, on top of Genji’s foot. She stumbles, then falls flat into his lap, and Angela’s, too.

 

All three of them blink in surprise. Then, Lena splits into a massive grin, and hugs them both with a cry. “You’re both alright! And Angie! Oh, Angie, I’m so glad you’re alive, Genji found you, I’m so relieved-”

 

Six more shots ring out, cutting Lena off. There’s a crash, deafening in the sudden silence, but it’s definitely a bot which crashes to the ground as metal scatters across the concrete wherever the last of the fight took place.

 

“That’s the last of them,” Seventy-Six breathes a deep sigh of a relief. “You couldn’t get Angela or Genji up on the comms?” Is his next question, despite Genji’s quarrels before.

 

“No, sir,” McCree answers, “I’m-”

 

“They’re hereeeeeeee! Jesse! I found them! Fell over them! Literally!”

 

Angela’s smile is somehow filled with pain than before as Lena sprawls across them both, grinning like it’s Christmas. Seventy-Six, McCree and Lúcio all appear at once from around the corner of the crate, and the relief is written all over their faces, too.

 

McCree is holding his arm, but still swaggers like nothing’s wrong. Lúcio hones in on Angela immediately, where Lena gives way, the medic getting to work settling her against the crate with the hum of his music growing in a slow crescendo.

 

“You found her, then.” Of course, Seventy-Six is ever-short with Genji, in a quiet conversation while the others fuss other Angela. “You were stupid for running off without orders, but I’m fucking glad you found her.”

 

“Me too.”

 

“It won’t happen again, will it.”

 

“No.”

 

“Good.” Seventy-Six straightens, then glances out to the snow billowing past the entrance. “Winston, it’s Morrison. Everybody’s secure. We need a ride out of here.”

 

“Already sorted,” Genji says, with a slight incline of his head. He’s _trying_ not to be smug about it. “I comm’d before, and was about to go and look you for all. Luckily, we all found each other. And are safe.”

 

“Lucky indeed,” agrees Seventy-Six.

 

“What about the scientists?” Their absence suddenly flags to Genji, whom they were tasked to capture, not be rescued from. “Did they…?”

 

“Escaped.”

 

“Unfortunate.”

 

“It is, but it was that, or McCree come home without his other arm.” Now Morrison _does_ sound relieved again, that he managed to save all of them - Angela from the omnics, and Jesse from whatever horrors they faced tracking down the last of the bots and their creators. It sounded tense, perhaps as bad as Angela’s ordeal trapped with something not quite human pointing a gun to her head. “I know I made the right choice.” He gives McCree a sparing look as he hovers over Angela now, then gives Genji a nod. “.... Thank you, really. For helping to bring her home.”

 

“You all did well, given the extreme circumstances,” Winston joins in again over the comm, picking his moment. Genji settles back into the crate, smoothing his hand over Angela’s, who squeezes back as she speaks with the others. “The shuttle should be arriving shortly. Let’s get you all home.”

 

Genji likes the idea, even if home that night is sat up beside a hospital bad, with a miserably perched Angela on uncomfortable pillows. Returning home to Gibraltar is better, even empty-handed after their mission, because Angela is there and gets time to rest and recover. He doesn’t mind the extra company he gets to keep with her, not one bit.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading x


End file.
